It's been nine years

this month since my brother drank himself to death. I haven't been in a good place the last couple of days and he's been on my mind. I was in Paris when I got the call, on business, alone. It was a Saturday and I had spent the entire day walking the streets of Paris, visiting the Louvre. Late that night, in my hotel at the airport, my father called and told me my brother was in a coma and that he wasn't expected to survive. I was on a flight within a couple of hours and I can't begin to describe what that long flight was like. Sue met me at the airport, to take me to the hospital. My brother loved Sue, he always had, and she loved him. They both married others but never stopped loving each other. I don't know why they never ended up together. Maybe because they were both haunted by demons. I think my brother was born to drink and I think Sue was driven to it. She was raped and left bound for hours in her first apartment, first month after moving out on her own after college. She never got over it. It left her hollow. I always thought that it wasn't so much the rape as it was being left there hands and legs tied , gagged, for so long. Left alone with it. It just never left her.

Neither Sue or I left the hospital for more than a couple of hours during the next week. My family never questioned why Sue was there. Her husband knew better than to do anything but accept it. Tests showed that my brother was brain dead from the time he was in cardiac arrest. He looked so strong, sinewy, ropey muscles, lean and tan. Breathing with a respirator, fuck the sound of that thing for a week. Susan and I slept in a waiting room on couches and chairs put together. She cried every night and I would hold her. We drank coffee in the cafeteria, closing it down every night, opening it the next morning. My family came and went, friends came and went, Sue and I continued our vigil, talking sometimes, sometimes silent for hours at a time. We never went very long without sitting with my brother, listening to that fucking machine, watching his chest rise and fall. People would plead with us to go home and get some sleep but we stayed. I knew what had to happen, I just had to wait for my father to accept it. We always had the waiting room to ourselves over night. We would pace, try to read, stare at the TV, drink more coffee, try to find a comfortable way to sleep. It was impossible no matter how you tried there was no comfort of any kind to be had. Except in each other. I don't even know how many nights had passed when I woke to her sobbing against my chest. Some ridiculous position we were in with chairs moved up against other chairs against a couch, blanket covered. And we found each other. I don't even know how to describe it. I think it was about life. And she never stopped sobbing, the entire time we were coupled. I don't even know how our clothes came off, I really don't. I've never experienced anything like it before or since. It was never spoken of by either of us. This is the first time I have told the story to anyone. I don't know, I'm just raw today. We held each other every night after that but it never happened again. It wasn't sex, it really wasn't. It was life.

They said only family could be in the room when the respirator was unplugged. I didn't ask them if Sue could be there, I told them she was going to be.

It took longer than I thought it would for his breathing to become shallower. Long enough that it gave us hope that he could breathe without it. But I knew he was already gone, empty inside. I was holding Sue when he took his last breath. It felt strangely like our middle of the night coming together.

I haven't seen her since the funeral.